The fun things we do

Valentines day

I’ve been wanting to do a stamping project with Sophia for a while but I didn’t have many stamps and I know they can get expensive fast. However, yesterday I scored a ton of stamps off of a garage sale app for only $10 for it all.

I scored all these stamps from a garage sale app for only $10

Luckily I had bought an ink pad at my last outing to Hobby Lobby, so we got right into to stamping first thing this morning.

What you will need:

White card stock

Stamps of your liking

Ink pad(s)

Wet wipes (for easy cleaning)

What you will need

I picked out several stamps I thought Sophia would like to stamp with. I found a pink ink pad that had come in an art kit Sophia had received as a Christmas present. The purple on is the new one I got on sale. We folded the card stock in half.

The pink ink pad is a bit dried out so it wasn’t really working

TIP: Test the ink pads before hand. I should have tested pink one but we found out it was a bit dried out so it wasn’t really working well.

Testing out the purple ink

It took her a little bit to get the hang of the process. She wanted to just keep stamping with out grabbing more ink on it in between.

Pushing the stamp down with all her might

I told her to push the stamp all the way down since she was only pushing half the stamp, so then she pushed on it with all her might 🙂

Sophia got ink on her finger and she said “I’m sooo pretty” I think she likes the ink color 🙂

TIP: Have the wet wipes with in easy reach for wiping off ink from little fingers 🙂

Making butterflies

After the first card was all stamped up, Sophia wanted to make another one.

Fronts of the two cards Sophia made

Finished cards 🙂

Insides of the cards

This is a great activity for exploring new vocabulary, a new multi-step process, listening skills and learning to follow instructions.

Depending on the stamps you use, these can be modified for any occasion or holiday. Very quick easy fun to make.

I decided that with our painted doilies we would make glittery Valentines sun catchers.

Glittery hearts in the window

What you will need:

Scissors

Black cardstock

Glitter

Contact paper

Pencil

Doilies of your liking

Wet wipes (for clean up)

Baking sheet

At first I was thinking we would glue the glitter to the frame but then we decided to put the glitter all over the contact paper instead.

Materials (we didn’t end up using the glue stick)

Cut out a suitable frame for your doilies.

TIP: If working with a toddler you may want have some extra space in the frame for placement of the doilies.

Sizing out the opening on the first frame

After you are satisfied with your frame, if you are making multiples like we were, use the cut out frame as a stencil and lightly trace it on to the remaining cardstock.

Once you have one frame sized to your liking, lightly trace it on the others with a pencil

I chose to have the contact paper pieces not cover the whole frame. I wanted it about half way on the frame so I measured it out as shown below, leaving roughly two edges out.

Measuring out the contact paper

The front piece of contact paper I wanted to be even smaller (as at this point I was still thinking of gluing glitter on the frame). I used one cut out piece and measured a slightly larger piece for it.

Measuring out the smaller piece of contact paper. I didn’t want it to be much larger than the opening

Once you have all your cutting done place the larger piece over the opening, as shown below.

TIP: If you aren’t planning on doing anything to the frame it is easier to make them the same size for the front and back.

Place the contact paper over the openingReady to place hearts

Let your little one place the hearts as they desire.

Hearts all set in their frames

For glitter portion you want to place the frames in to a baking pan or tray of some sort to contain all the glitter.

Ready to glitter

Sophia wanted to show the kids how to glitter 🙂 Video below

Glitter fun

After glitter has been placed you will want to shake or (rub with a finger) the excess glitter around so they aren’t in big piles.

Place the smaller piece of contact paper over the top opening

After you are done, place the remaining piece of contact paper over the top to seal it in.

I received liquid watercolors for Christmas and have had this project in mind ever since. I’m so glad we finally got to try them out and it was an instant hit 🙂

Finished hearts

What you will need:

Liquid watercolors

Cups for your watercolors

Pipettes

Doilies of your liking

Wet wipes (for clean up)

Baking sheet

Cling wrap

Oven (not necessary)

I found these spill proof paint cups on Walmart.com and I’m happy to say they worked great. I love that they come with lids so you can store paint in them as well.

Materials

Set up: Place a cling wrap on your baking sheet.

I chose to use red liquid watercolor for our first batch. In one cup I put about a 1/4 inch of water and added a bit of the watercolor in. The second cup I poured undiluted watercolor in (as you can see above, in a lot smaller quantity).

Too excited to start

Separate the doilies so you only have one in each spot. Our pan fit six nicely.

Got the doilies separated

I let her have one of the paint cups at a time. It fits nicely on the baking sheet to help keep mess down. I had her do the diluted one first since it is easier for her to get the paint in the pipette by herself.

So exciting to squirt paint 🙂Mid squirt

After she got done with the diluted version of paint I let her have the undiluted cup. With that she asked me to help her a few times to fill it up.

Red hearts ready to dry

It’s ok if the hearts have white spots on them. There is plenty of paint underneath the doilies that will soak up in to them.

Admiring her heartsBlue hearts

We repeated the process with the blue liquid watercolor.

Already a proMid squirtBlue hearts ready to dry

You can see the darker blue spots in the picture above (the undiluted paint)

Ready to dry

After sitting out for a while you can see the doilies absorbed the paint underneath them.

I placed the hearts to dry in the oven

I placed the hearts in the oven to dry, with just the oven light turned on for a small source of heat. I wanted the end results to be as vibrant in color as possible, so I wanted all the paint to dry on to the doilies. It took about 5 hours for the hearts to fully dry.

TIP: You can remove the doilies off the cookie sheets and set to dry on a dry surface. Note that the colors will not be as bright if you do this though.

Finished hearts

You will notice the color variations on all the hearts. I love how they turned out 🙂

TIP: After you are done and cleaning up you can put your undiluted paints back in the original container. I saved the 2 diluted paints in the spill proof containers to use in later projects.

This is a great project for boys and girls. This can be done with any free coloring pages you find to your liking online. I found some cute teddy bears, Pooh characters, even a super cute Ninjago one (link here). Just Google for free Valentine coloring pages.

Hello Kitty Stained Glass Valentine

What you will need:

Printer and computer/tablet/or smart phone and a sheet of printer paper

You may have seen these cute critters on Pinterest. We made 3 different versions since we kept having glue issues. I’ll show you what we all did. With pro’s and cons as they appeared.

Toddler approved

1. First we tried to make them with Elmers glue as a post on Pinterest had suggested. I found it very flimsy and not toddler friendly as I had to hold the pieces on for a long time and the pom poms sucked in all the glue I put on. However this is a great version for older kids with patience and enough skills to do this on their own.

Put glue on the clothes pinWe wanted our Love Bug to have legs so we cut a pipe cleaner in 3 and folded little feet at the endsPlacing pom pomsAs you can see the 4 pom poms didn’t fit all that great and were having trouble drying nicely

2. The second Love Bug we tried Removable Clear Mounting Squares instead of the Elmers glue. This version is great for toddlers as a sensory and exploratory experience, as there is no messy glue to work with. However, the end product is not stable to hang up and the mounting squares don’t grip very strongly. So we ended taking it apart and using the pieces in the final version.

3. The final and most successful version, we used hot glue. As I mentioned we used the pieces from the second version so the googlie eyes are already attached. This method will give you the most durable end result. Not as toddler friendly unless they know how to use a glue gun. Sophia is good about listening to instructions so I don’t have problems with her putting pieces on to the hot glue dabs I place. Plus I’m like a hawk with 100% attention on what she does when we are working together. I think in a few months (if I can find a suitable glue gun) I’ll let her practice holding it.

I was just recently asked how old Sophia was, when we started arts and crafts with her. Sophia’s first hands on art activity was finger painting. She was 8 months old. I made her edible finger paints to explore on water color paper, that I then later used for our Valentines Day cards. I did a ton of searching around and looked at different recipes. I have compiled a list of 9 different edible finger paint recipes that I found.

First finger painting

I used a 3 ingredient recipe that was just cornstarch, water, and food coloring. 1. The Imagination Tree has a good recipe for it here. (Cooking required)

First finger painting

As you can see in the pictures it is pretty chunky and a bit jello-like.

Chunky paints

There are plenty of other kinds of edible finger paints. Some of them require cooking and a few do not.

Go check out our Facebook New Years give away! I’m giving away two prizes: Love Owl craft kit and a Mystery Craft kit (you will need to supply your own glue). Go check out the Facebook post about it for your chance to win one or both prizes!

This is my favorite art project from 2014 we did. (I only have this one picture of it.) We did this as a family project since Sophia was only about a year and a half old at the time. So having an extra person helping definitely keeps the mess contained better.

Love hand print painting!

What you will need:

Acrylic paint

Water color paper

Paint brushes

Painters tape

Razor knife

A cup with water for setting dirty paint brushes in

Wet wipes (for easy clean up)

Tape the word you want on to the paper. Trim it with the razor knife to your liking. Paint your little one’s hand and have them place it over the paper. Repeat in as many colors as you like.

TIP: You want to make sure all the edges of the tape have some paint or it wont show up. (You can see the top corner of the L disappear).